Witch Hunt/Tropes
This is a list of tropes present in Witch Hunt. Tropes * Acquitted Too Late: All too common among bad Towns. * Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: Downplayed. Compared to most social deduction games, there are relatively few roles with names long enough to be abbreviated. * Acquired Poison Immunity: Supposedly how the Alchemist became immune to poison. Played for laughs with the Barkeep and Servant, who have an acquired alcohol immunity. * The Alcoholic: The Barkeep, and by extension the Servant, have this as an explicit attribute that prevents them from being role blocked. * Anachronism Stew: Hoo boy. Roles include a seer, a western-style sheriff, a whole panoply of cultists, a hired assassin, and even a Steam Punk engineer. * Animate Dead: One of the Mystic's abilities. * An Adventurer Is You: Though based on social deduction rather than combat. As such, the six major classes are Investigative, Support, Controller, Killer, Messaging, and Special. * Animate Dead: One of the Mystic's abilities, which can reanimate dead players briefly to use their abilities. * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Winning a match gets you Gold, which can be spent on various cosmetics such as avatars. * Anyone Can Die: And most people usually do by the end of any given game. * Back from the Dead: Once per game, the Priest can revive a dead Town player. They usually revive a powerful role such as the Sheriff or Knight. As such, this usually results in . . . * Back for the Dead: Unless there's Town Protective roles left, revived players often get killed fairly quickly. * The Bad Guy Wins: Whenever the Cult or Neutral Killer wins. * Big Bad: The Cult Leader. He's by far the most powerful asset to the Cult, able to replenish their numbers without fear of getting killed at night. * Big Good: The Sheriff. Once he reveals himself, he can easily gather information and deduce who the evils are. He's also one of only two Special roles in the game, since he can mimic the effects of any class. * Bolt of Divine Retribution: The most expensive death animation, but also probably the coolest-looking. * Burn the Witch!: The default death animation has the executee being burnt at the stake. * Cassandra Truth: It's all too common for an Investigative role to reveal vital information, only to be ignored for fear of Avengers. * Cessation of Existence: Anyone who leaves the game is beyond dead; even the Priest can't bring them back. * Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Town is blue, Cult is red, Neutrals are white by default. Specific Neutral roles have their own colors (Assassin is purple, Siren is light blue, Avenger is yellow, Joker is pink, Druid is green, Mercenary is orange, and Doppelganger is dark blue.) * Conveniently Interrupted Document: Journals usually end up as this. The results of night activities aren't shown until the end of the night, the same moment any kills are processed. As such, it's fairly common to have a journal say something like, "X is an Investigative/Killer class. Y is a Support/Special class. Z is" * Conviction by Contradiction: The main means of finding evils. Can be exploited by clever Jokers. * Death Seeker: Zig-zagged with the Joker. He specifically wants to be publicly executed, and loses if he is killed at night. * Detect Evil: The Inquisitor can unerringly find members of the Cult. However, it doesn't work on Neutral Killers or the Cult Leader. * Difficult, but Awesome: The Enchantress and the Engineer. The Enchantress needs to be good at reading the Cult and finding their likely targets, and the Engineer needs to lure in evils without doing the same to Town. However, played well, either of these classes can be an incredibly valuable role. * Doppelganger: A Neutral Support role who can transform into any other role. However, they can't transform back; once they've chosen a role they're locked into it. * The Dragon: The Acolyte. He acts as the main killing force of the Cult and will always spawn alongside the Cult Leader. Though it doesn't seem to be a position of contention, since any Cult member except the Cult Leader can become the Acolyte if the Acolyte dies. * Driven to Suicide: Several roles can die this way. A Knight will kill himself if he tries to Strike Down an ally, as will a Mercenary whose target dies. Additionally, an Avenger whose target is killed at night becomes a Joker, which is not quite this trope but still appropriate. * Dying Clue: The purpose of journals. * Enemy Mine: Both the Town and the Cult want the Neutral Killer dead. * Evil Counterpart: Every Town class except for the Sheriff has a Cult counterpart. If converted, they will become that very counterpart. * Evil Sorcerer: The Warlock and the Sorceress, Cult versions of the Wizard and Enchantress. * Evil Versus Evil: The Cult versus Neutral Killers. * Face-Heel Turn: Cult conversion. * Failure Gambit: The Joker usually wants to pull this off so they can get themselves executed. * Gadgeteer Genius: The Engineer, who uses dart launchers and sentry guns to kill enemies of the Town. * God of Evil: Chernobog, the god that the Cult worships. Not much information about him has been revealed aside from some lore referring to him as the Infernal King, implying he's some kind of demon god. * He Knows Too Much: A common reason for the Cult or Neutral Killers to kill people off. This sometimes backfires if the Town realizes that the victim died right as they were suspicious of someone. * Heroic Neutral: Druids and Mercenaries who side with the Town. Jokers and Avengers can also theoretically side with Town, but rarely do so unless they've already won. * Heroic Sacrifice: An important part of playing Town is knowing when to do this. The Knight excels at it, since his Stand Guard ability allows him to sacrifice himself to save another player and strike down their killer. * I See Dead People: The Priest and Mystic both do so, though it's obviously flavored in a darker light with the latter since she's a Cult role. * Kangaroo Court: What happens once the Town loses the majority vote, usually resulting in a Cult win. A clever Cult can invoke this even while Town still has majority. * Kingmaker Scenario: There are several ways this can happen, but the most common is for the last three players to all be on different sides. One of them has almost always already lost or already won, and it's up to them to decide the overall winner. * Magitek: What the Invoker's technology runs on, as opposed to the Engineer's mundane inventions. * The Many Deaths of You: The default death animation is a fairly typical stake-burning, but players can buy new ones and choose which one they will use upon being executed. Death by drowning, death by guillotine, death by lightning bolt from the heavens . . . * The Medic: The Healer can heal other players, and they can also heal themselves twice. * Melee A Trois: The main conflict is Town vs. Cult vs. Neutral Killers, since none of these sides can win if either of the other two are alive. Neutral Support roles can side with anyone, while Neutral Messaging roles have their own goals. Custom games can be even more complex with multiple Neutral Killers. * Miscarriage of Justice: The Avenger's goal is to get their target publicly executed, and their target is always a Town member at the start of the game. * Necromancer: The Mystic. Their equivalent to the Priest's Blessing is even called Necromancy. * No Points for Neutrality: The Doppelganger cannot win if it dies or the game ends before it remembers a role. * No Saving Throw: Unstoppable attacks (the Sheriff's Execute, the Assassin's Rampage, the Druid's Bear Form, etc.) bypass death immunity and healing. They can still be stopped by the target being jailed (except for Execute since the Sheriff's already in the cell), but even that won't stop the Joker's Wild Card. * Omnicidal Neutral: Neutral Killers are technically neutral, but they only win if they can outlive every Town and Cult member. Notably, if there are multiple Neutral Killers (as in certain custom setups), dead ones can still win if another one of them wins, but only if their role is exactly the same (i.e. Assassin loses if Siren wins.) * Professional Killer: According to the lore, the Assassin was hired to wipe out both the Town and the Cult. * Properly Paranoid: Everyone. The Town has to find the Cult and Neutral Killer before they're outnumbered, the Cult must take out potential threats without seeming suspicious, and the Neutral Killer needs to keep the attention off of themselves before they're caught. * Psychic Powers: Obviously, the Psychic has them. She uses them to communicate with other players and send messages anonymously. The Mindcrafter is flavored more as messing with your opponents' minds. * Religion of Evil: The Cult, obviously. * Required Secondary Powers: Healers, Alchemists, and Druids are immune to poison because they can just cure it on their own. This prevents needing a second Healer or Druid while still restricting either class's ability to target themselves. * Revenge Before Reason: The Avenger's sole goal is to see their target executed. The lore explains it as the Avenger holding a grudge that their target had long since forgotten. * Rule of Three: Many abilities have a maximum of three uses. Examples include the Sheriff's Execute, the Knight's Strike Down, and the Engineer's Sentries. * Seers: The Seer is one of the many roles in the game, able to narrow down a player's class. The Oracle is aligned with the Cult and gets a more precise result. * Spotting the Thread: Many an evil has thought they had a solid claim, only to be undone by an observant Town member who noticed a small flaw. * Springtime for Hitler: It's a fairly common Joker strategy to make themselves look like an Avenger by randomly accusing someone of being a Cult member. Of course, this doesn't go over so well if that player is actually executed . . . or worse yet, if that player actually IS a Cult member. * Taking You With Me: If anyone attacks a player that a Knight is guarding, they will give their life to kill their attackers. * Troll: The Joker. No one wants them to get executed except for the Joker themselves, but their various tricks make it all the easier for them to frame themselves. * Variable Player Goals: Par for the course in social deduction. * Violation of Common Sense: Why would you ever want to be executed? If you're a Joker, of course. * Wild Card: Neutral Messaging roles and the Druid can both act as this, but the Joker has an ability explicitly called Wild Card, which allows them to kill one of their guilty voters once they've been executed. * Witch Classic: Surprisingly enough, averted. The game is more about finding cultists than witches. The closest role is the Sorceress, who is more of a gender-flipped Evil Sorcerer. * Witch Hunter: The Inquisitor hunts down the Cult and can find them unerringly. * Wizard Classic: The Wizard, of course.